Posting Podfic on AO3
After a discussion on twitter today, I thought people might find it useful to have a tutorial on how to post podfics to AO3. It's a question I see come up fairly often and in the past I've linked to the tutorial I made for pod_together but that challenge is different than most since the podfic gets posted with the written fic. So here's a new one!
There's no single way to post podfics to AO3, but here are some suggestions.
Step 1: Posting Form/Tags
Ok, first go to the posting page.
There should be a button under your icon in the top right hand corner.
This will bring you to a form with lots of questions about the work you're posting.
A lot of the fields are self explanatory so I won't go through each one, but here are some things to watch out for.
Oh, and if you're uploading your older works, there is the option to backdate the entry.
Step 2: Work Title
When it comes to titling your work, a lot of podficcers choose to add some sort of indication that the work is a podfic (since most people browsing AO3 will assume works are fanfics and not everyone checks tags). The most common ways I've seen are either '[Podfic of] Title' or 'Title (podfic)' or similar.
Step 3: Linking to the Author/fic
There are two common ways of linking back to the author of the fic and their written version.
The way I suggest is to list the fic as an "inspired by" work.
Listing the fic as an inspiration for your podfic will include a link to the fic and the author just below the header/work summary of the entry in the notes section.
The benefits of linking this way is, if the fic linked to is on AO3, the author will get a notification of your entry and there's the option for them to link to your podfic automatically in the original AO3 fic entry and on the author's related works page (and the fic will show up on your related works page too).
The other (less common) way I see of people linking to the author is to list them as a co-author. I don't actually suggest people do this, although I fully admit that for some podficcers, it's what works best for them.
Note: Once you've added a co-author, you can't remove them yourself. They have the option to remove themselves, and you have the option to delete the work and reupload, but then the URL to the work would change and you'd lose any comments/stats associated with the work.
If you list the author as co-author, there's no way to distinguish in the header who the podficcer is or who the author is, they'll both show up, listed in alphabetical order. This can be confusing to people, and I've seen more than one case of misattribution when people link to the work (even when there are notes explaining who did what).
Co-authors also have equal control over the work; they're able to make changes to the entry and they'll get notification anytime someone leaves feedback, etc. That means the author also has the power to delete the entry entirely. I've never heard of an author abusing the co-author feature this way, but it is within their power.
I've also heard some authors mention that having podfic mixed in with their fic (because the podfic will show up as one of their works) screws with their stats, by distorting the number of works they have listed and more specific stats like their total word count.
OK, now that I've got my biased warnings out, there are some pros to posting this way. Anyone subscribed to the author will get a notification about your podfic, the podfic will show on the author's profile, which might bring extra traffic, the author will get comment notification, etc.
To list an author as co-author, they must have an account on AO3, and you'd check off "Add co-authors?" in the "Preface" section of the form and add their name.
You can list the author as co-author as well as listing their work as being "inspired by" which seems to be what people who use this method do? (OK, I'm basing this entirely off of reena_jenkins who's the only podficcer I could find in a quick search who does this.)
And lastly, if you don't want to use AO3's built in linking systems, you can always include a link to the fic in the body of the work, like you would if you were posting to LJ.
Step 4: Body of the Work
Once you get to the body of the work, most of the typical podfic information has already been given. Personally, I include:
My code template for anyone interested:
Download: MP3 (SIZE MBs) ||| M4B (SIZE MBs)
Please right click and "Save As".
Length: ::
Now, I'm still using the streaming code I talked about here, which I host and works just fine on AO3, but it's worth noting that AO3 has a number of streaming players that they host.
Please note, AO3 doesn't host podfics, so any download or streaming links have to be hosted offsite.
And that's it! You can press preview to check out the post before posting, then either post or go back and edit anything you want to change.
There's no single way to post podfics to AO3, but here are some suggestions.
Step 1: Posting Form/Tags
Ok, first go to the posting page.
There should be a button under your icon in the top right hand corner.
This will bring you to a form with lots of questions about the work you're posting.
A lot of the fields are self explanatory so I won't go through each one, but here are some things to watch out for.
- Under "Archive Warnings", "Choose Not to Use Archive Warnings" is checked by default, even if you check off one of the other warnings, that will stay checked off unless you uncheck it.
- In the free form fields (Fandoms, Relationships, Characters, Additional Tags), there is a tab autocomplete option that'll appear once you start typing. As far as I can tell these autofills are for the canonical tag but you're in no way limited to those tags, you are free to ignore those suggestions.
- Since AO3 doesn't have different works categories (everything is designed for fic right now, even though they welcome other fanwork types), I'd highly suggest using the Additional Tags field to list podfic specific information.
The tags I use the most are:
Podfic, Audio Format: MP3, Audio Format: M4B, Audio Format: Streaming, and a length tag, such as Podfic Length: 0-10 Minutes. There's also the Podfic & Podficced Works tag, but it's a catch all tag that wrangles multiple tags together such as the "Podfic" and "Podfic Available" tags. heard_the_owl also suggested using Cover Art. - I'd highly suggest that you take a moment to consider other content tags to add to your work. I've noticed that having good tags can increase the hit count I get on an entry and I, personally, use tags a lot when browsing AO3.
Additional tags can be anything, but I try to always include tropes (werewolves, harlequin, AU, etc.), content (specific kinks, warnings that aren't covered in the Archive warnings, etc.) and sometimes tags relating to how the podfic was made (was it a collaboration? was it made for a specific comm? etc.).
Oh, and if you're uploading your older works, there is the option to backdate the entry.
Step 2: Work Title
When it comes to titling your work, a lot of podficcers choose to add some sort of indication that the work is a podfic (since most people browsing AO3 will assume works are fanfics and not everyone checks tags). The most common ways I've seen are either '[Podfic of] Title' or 'Title (podfic)' or similar.
Step 3: Linking to the Author/fic
There are two common ways of linking back to the author of the fic and their written version.
The way I suggest is to list the fic as an "inspired by" work.
Listing the fic as an inspiration for your podfic will include a link to the fic and the author just below the header/work summary of the entry in the notes section.
The benefits of linking this way is, if the fic linked to is on AO3, the author will get a notification of your entry and there's the option for them to link to your podfic automatically in the original AO3 fic entry and on the author's related works page (and the fic will show up on your related works page too).
The other (less common) way I see of people linking to the author is to list them as a co-author. I don't actually suggest people do this, although I fully admit that for some podficcers, it's what works best for them.
Note: Once you've added a co-author, you can't remove them yourself. They have the option to remove themselves, and you have the option to delete the work and reupload, but then the URL to the work would change and you'd lose any comments/stats associated with the work.
If you list the author as co-author, there's no way to distinguish in the header who the podficcer is or who the author is, they'll both show up, listed in alphabetical order. This can be confusing to people, and I've seen more than one case of misattribution when people link to the work (even when there are notes explaining who did what).
Co-authors also have equal control over the work; they're able to make changes to the entry and they'll get notification anytime someone leaves feedback, etc. That means the author also has the power to delete the entry entirely. I've never heard of an author abusing the co-author feature this way, but it is within their power.
I've also heard some authors mention that having podfic mixed in with their fic (because the podfic will show up as one of their works) screws with their stats, by distorting the number of works they have listed and more specific stats like their total word count.
OK, now that I've got my biased warnings out, there are some pros to posting this way. Anyone subscribed to the author will get a notification about your podfic, the podfic will show on the author's profile, which might bring extra traffic, the author will get comment notification, etc.
To list an author as co-author, they must have an account on AO3, and you'd check off "Add co-authors?" in the "Preface" section of the form and add their name.
You can list the author as co-author as well as listing their work as being "inspired by" which seems to be what people who use this method do? (OK, I'm basing this entirely off of reena_jenkins who's the only podficcer I could find in a quick search who does this.)
And lastly, if you don't want to use AO3's built in linking systems, you can always include a link to the fic in the body of the work, like you would if you were posting to LJ.
Step 4: Body of the Work
Once you get to the body of the work, most of the typical podfic information has already been given. Personally, I include:
- The cover art
- Download links
- The podfic length
- The streaming link
My code template for anyone interested:
Download: MP3 (SIZE MBs) ||| M4B (SIZE MBs)
Please right click and "Save As".
Length: ::
Now, I'm still using the streaming code I talked about here, which I host and works just fine on AO3, but it's worth noting that AO3 has a number of streaming players that they host.
Please note, AO3 doesn't host podfics, so any download or streaming links have to be hosted offsite.
And that's it! You can press preview to check out the post before posting, then either post or go back and edit anything you want to change.